Just annealed some brass what do you think?

[deadlyswift]

Ok guys I just got done practicing anneal some of my older Win brass. Someone posted a topic about a week ago. Asking if you annealed brass. If you did why? and If you didn't why? Something along those lines anyway. I posted on that topic that I didn't but only because my knowledge on how to was lacking. Well I'm trying to increase that knowledge.

So here are some of the cases that I annealed just now. I have a sinclair case holder with the drill adapter. I would turn the necks in a propane tourch. I held the neck and part of the shoulder in the flame untill the neck would turn blue from the shoulder/neck junction to the mouth. The first few glowed red on me untill I got use to what the neck looked like just before it glowed red. These are the cases that seem to have come out the best, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking at here so what do you guys think? I don't want to try this with my exspensive Lapua brass untill I'm sure I've figured out how to do it right.

 

[jo191145]

Not bad. You'll get the hang of it. Your Lapua will not be exactly the same so be aware.

Looks to me like some slight coloring transfered pretty far down the body. Probably not dangerous but you might want to try keeping the flame on the neck more than the shoulders.

I've only used deep dish sockets for holding brass. Maybe that slight coloration further down is normal if not using a heat sink/socket. Or it could just be an anomoly of the photos. Either way I like the one on the far left

 

[deadlyswift]

Joe,
Thanks for the tip. The brass is discolored down the body a bit. I did hold part of the shoulder and neck in the flame. This brass is my Win brass and it is almost useless. Some of the brass you can almost push a primer in with your thumb. So Those pieces have been marked with a sharpe. I'm glad now that I didn't toss it out. it works great to practice on annealing. The others I still use with mild loads for fouling shots.

I have a lot of this brass. So I'll work on just holding the neck in the flame and see how it goes.
Thanks again for the tip.

 

[jo191145]

Yep, I got a big old box of spent brass I save for various expieriments ;D
Now that I anneal that box does'nt grow as fast though.

 

[Robby T]

I'm still in experimentation stage with annealing brass and royally screwed up recentlly before a match with my last batch of brass.

I have a thin neck 6.5x284 and just a few seconds under the torch is enough. I was counting to 12 and getting the necks cherry red. Before the match, I could barely get enough neck tension to hold the bullets. I was wondering why I shot so poor that day, and tried to reload again with the bullets falling down in the case....bingo, too soft....

I learned to use the spent experiement brass, and NOT to get it too hot the hard way.

 

[jo191145]

In the beginning I found it very useful to do any expierimenting and new lots of good brass in the dark. Much easier to see that red glow begin to develop.
They say once you see red you've gone to far. I agree but when starting out with unexplored brass sometimes you'll begin to see a hint at the case mouth. A hint never seems to hurt anything for me. Back off a few counts and have at it after that.

 

[BoydAllen]

templaq

 

[Rust]

Hornady markets a liquid temperature indicator, looks kind of like the old "white out" typewriter correction fluid. A dab on the neck and a dab on the shoulder will do.

I anneal my brass just a touch past the shoulder, basically duplicating the Lapua factory annealing for the brass that I shoulder bump, seems to take resizing just a little better that way. At any rate it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about using an induction heater to anneal brass lately and IMO it seems to be the way to go as it allows for precise time control and repeatability without playing with fire. I'm going that route myself shortly and it gives me a new toy to tinker with.

 

[boogershooter]

Rust, ??? whats an induction heater? Thanks.

 

[Steve Blair]

Induction heating occurs when an electrically conductive material is exposed to a high-frequency electromagnetic field, generating eddy currents and Joule heating. It is a commonly used production technique when a specific area must be heated very quickly to high temperature, such as selective heat treatment or annealing. It is well suited to our annealing problems and relatively inexpensive units are available that allow annealing brass in a limited duty cycle. Problems arise when attempting to use inductive heating for a longer period. The induction coils themselves become hot and will eventually fail. Almost all production applications use copper tubing for the coils and circulate cooling water through them to permit long duty cycles. This requirement increases complexity and cost. Coil design is crucial to efficiency and extensive analysis is performed for industrial applications. A substantial body of information is available on the web and Google will find it.

 

[alf]

Hold the flame higher.

I start with the torch at an angle, slightly down, hitting the outside of the neck on the near side, and the inside of the neck on the opposite side, at the same time.

If a case takes 8 seconds to anneal, I hold on the top for 4 seconds, move to the middle for a couple, and end on the neck/shoulder juncture for a couple more while watching for the upper neck to change color.

I think you're getting too much annealing down the case body by holding on the neck/shoulder point.

 

[deadlyswift]

Alf,
I'm asumming you are putting your torch in a vise?

I can say that I have been practicing a bit more since the cases above were posted. This time I was holding half of the neck in the flame. they seem to come out a lot better. The color on them only went maybe 1/8in. past the shoulder. Is that still to much? Like Rust said above I was trying to duplicate lapua's factory look. Maybe that's not a good thing since I have no idea of lapua's heat source, or method of annealing. I did find 8 sec. seem to be the ticket. at 9 to 10sec. the tip of the mouth would just start to glow red. At 8sec. from the shoulder/neck junction to the tip was blue. So I was holding them for 8sec.

I will have to try your method and see how it works for me.
Thanks for the info
Mark

 

[bowzarrow]

Any one tried the tempelstix? I just picked up a 650f and a 750f. It seems the 650 melts at about 8 seconds and the 750 at 12 seconds. Its hard to hold the drill and check the temp at the same time. plus the case is cooling as soon as you take it out of the flame. I read an article on this site that said if you get your brass to 750f even for a couple seconds its to long. what do you think? Shane

 

[camac]

Re annealing the shoulder - it has been discussed around here that the Lapua annealed brass (ie down past the shoulder) results in a nice soft shoulder for "bumping" and doesn't seem to have a noticable negative effect on shoulder growth?? In fact it seems to spring back better as, like the neck it is constrained by the chamber. But any one elses observations different?? It seems if you run hot loads and need to keep regularly bumping shoulder it may be worth it??